Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Last fall you rallied and signed the petition to save St. Mark's Bookshop. Now we're asking for your support once more, by casting your vote to help us qualify for a $250,000 small business grant from Chase and Living Social. Just visit the Mission: Small Business website and click "Log In & Support" where you can access the site using your Facebook account. Enter "St. Mark's Bookshop" in the business search box and cast your vote. If you wish, you'll be able to share your vote and help spread the word. A few clicks can make all the difference. Thank you again for your loyalty to St. Mark's Bookshop — long live writers and readers!

The marketplace has spoken. It doesn't want their books. Let them fold. It's a case of throwing money after bad at this point. I'm not a hater. I love books and book stores but even I don't buy them anymore.

Look, I love SMB. Truly do. They fought the good fight. They even outlasted the competition from Barnes & Noble across Astor Place. But is this a charity or a business? Either way, if they can't survive in that location with the amount of revenue they take in, maybe they should consider moving. They're only sitting on one of the prime spots for commercial foot traffic in the entire world, so it shouldn't be much surprise that their landlord wants a hefty rent. If they relocated to virtually anywhere else in the EV, their rent would go down, but I'm fairly certain their loyal clientele would follow because they provide good products with the type of inventory they stock. Food for thought SMB.

Actually about 85% of books sold are still print books, and that percentage has to be even higher when it comes to the art/poetry/small imprint titles that St. Mark's specializes in. The problem is not eBooks as much as it is people buying books (print AND e-) online and not in stores, as well as ridiculously high rents these days. Books are a pretty low-margin product.

St. Mark's can stay afloat, but frankly I think they ought to move to a different location. I don't mean Brooklyn, either. I mean like, a side street. They are in primo real estate due to all the luxurification of the general vicinity and I don't see how this problem will ever go away.

I'll certainly cast my vote for them; however, I do have a really hard time finding stuff there. When I'm looking for a new book I generally first check St Marks then if they don't have it I go to Strand and if they don't have it I go to Barnes and Noble. Often, I'll have to resort to Amazon because none of the three carry what I'm looking for. This isn't super rare stuff either.

I buy plenty of books. It's just that the last hardback I got felt like it could get ripped out of my hands on a subway platform and the paranoia was kinda distracting. My iphone with kindle app is a hell of a lot easier to manage with one hand (other hand holding the bar) . Newspaper or paper books are for people who have a seat, who is rarely me.

I love to read, but I can't afford to buy new books now because of my job situation. I can't be the only one. I mostly trade books with friends now and buy used books when I have a few dollars to spare.

Honestly Anon 12:35, that is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Never in the history of subway thieves has there been a run on hardcovers (which can be resold for about $2 -- ooh!), but people sure as hell steal iPhones and Kindles all the time. BTW thanks for letting us know the technology you own, we're all duly impressed *rolls eyes*

The antibook people with their digital fetish sound like insecure cultists: "You're all going to die!"

Digital books are total control systems. Everything you read will be monitored and recorded by the State. Its a fact. I'm sure the records will be made available to businesses for employment review purposes.

thank you nygrump and lvV--there is this bizarre anti-book sentiment out there that makes no sense. it sounds like people are threatened by books and bookstores--why else would they be so against them, rather than merely indifferent to them?

I recently got rid of my cable and have fallen in love with reading again. I don't think books - or publishing in general - are a dying medium but until I got rid of my TV, I hadn't realized just how pummeled we all are by crass advertising and programming where everyone seems to fight with each other - if Bravo is the toilet of cable TV, the Style channel is the pipe through which the shit gets sucked through.

To the Kindle/book debate. I'll buy tech books on the iPad (which I RARELY use) because they out date themselves rather quickly, but other than that I prefer a book in my hand. I'm the first one to give a book to a friend and say 'you have to read this' and you can't do that with an iPad.

And this notion of feeling threatened someone may steal a hardcover book on the subway is REALLY fucking funny.

I am so confused. Who is anti book or book store? I think that we can all agree that anyone that reads this blog or any local blog has an interest in local business and quality of life in their neighborhoods. But I just can't agree to hang on to a media that doesn't make sense for nostalgia's sake. Do I miss books? Yes. Do I miss perusing/wasting time at book stores? Yes. But I can not hang on to st marks bookshop simply because it "should" exist. Perhaps just perhaps they need to revisit their business model. I travel for work and an ereader is obviously more convenient. I borrow ebooks from the new York public library (yes you can do this) and also purchase books online. I loan my ebooks (yes you can do this) to friends and vice versa. Because I choose a different format in which to read a book does not make me anti-book. The same people that bemoan the closing of a Barnes and noble are the same that bemoaned its opening.

I still will buy books on occasion from st marks - mostly travel and art books - but I'm not going to wallow over its long goodbye.

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